EL SEGUNDO – The question posed to Mike Brown is to describe Dwight Howard’s first weeks of practice, how the latest in the long line of great Lakers centers looks, whether the mighty expectations might actually be met.

The words come to exist like popping corn inside Brown’s head, slowly but soon rapid-fire — because there are just so many descriptions the Lakers’ coach feels compelled to share in his answer.

“When you’re up close and you see,” Brown answers, “his power, his size, his strength, his agility, his quickness, his explosiveness, his skill set on a daily basis, it just amazes you that somebody can be that big and strong and do the things that he can do — athletically and physically.”

Brown reaches for another word — “special” — to boil it all down. And that’s the one to explain why the Lakers pursued Howard for more than a year in a trade from Orlando before finally landing him in August, the latest monumental change of both earth and sky in Lakerland.

Mikan and Chamberlain were individual basketball revolutions, forcing rules changes in the game by being big men with previously incomprehensible skill and coordination. Then Abdul-Jabbar went and scored more points and blocked more shots than anyone.

By comparison, Shaquille O’Neal with his one NBA MVP award and four NBA championships didn’t come close — and Howard is even further away (at zero and zero).

That is how much ground remains to be covered by Howard, even if by many accounts he is the only player already on par with forwards LeBron James and Kevin Durant in terms of making an impact on the game today. Howard’s size is the reason he can be in that class: As long as the average man has to look up at the hoop instead of look down, basketball will be inherently biased in favor of the big man.

It was Mikan who explained that to the world.

“George Mikan truly revolutionized the game and was the NBA’s first true superstar,” NBA commissioner David Stern said after Mikan’s death in 2005. “He had the ability to be a fierce competitor on the court and a gentle giant off the court. We may never see one man impact the game of basketball as he did.”

There was no shot clock, for example, until opponents realized their best chance to beat the odds and 6-foot-10 size of Mikan was to take an unsportsmanlike approach: Just hold the ball forever so there are fewer possessions for the guy to do his damage around both baskets.

That rule change more than half a century ago might’ve been the last one in favor of the big man, who has taken a beating both literally and figuratively over the years. Fans identify more with smaller players whose speed and athleticism are captivating to watch in open space. Their daring, David-like slingshot usage understandably inspires hope in the common man.

Chamberlain understood that, shrinking from references to his size in part because he knew he had speed and athleticism, too. But his height was his ultimate advantage, as Abdul-Jabbar tried to explain to Howard when they met a couple months ago.

“You just don’t have his height,” Abdul-Jabbar told Howard when talking about Chamberlain. “He was 7-3, 7-2. You’re pushing 6-10. But all the other qualities you have: strong, athletic, run, jump. You do all that stuff.”

Indeed, Howard is not a 7-footer. Stand him next to the young center the Lakers shipped out to get him, Andrew Bynum, and Howard looks like the little brother. Even power-forward teammate Pau Gasol is taller.

Abdul-Jabbar’s point is that Howard at 6-10 is close enough. That’s big enough. For Howard to have so many skills at the center position means he too is capable of being a revolutionary soldier in pushing the sport forward.

“I was very shocked to hear that from Kareem,” Howard said. “But it felt good.”

CASE STUDIES

Abdul-Jabbar used to be Bynum’s personal coach several years ago, too. That was partly because Abdul-Jabbar was trying to establish his credibility in the coaching profession, but partly him trying to continue the Lakers’ great legacy.

It’s the same thing now with Howard, and considering how the Lakers’ title hopes hinge on Howard making this team’s defense great, Lakers fans should be cheering Abdul-Jabbar for more than the statue of him going up outside Staples Center this season.

“Kareem was just telling me as far as what I bring to a team, how I’m built physically, I have the same body type as Wilt,” Howard said. “I can do things like Bill Russell. That’s what his point was.”

Ah, Big Bill … the ultimate Lakers nemesis who carried the Boston Celtics throughout the 1950s and ’60s with an incomparable defensive tenacity and assertiveness at the center position.

San Antonio’s David Robinson was very good; Houston’s Hakeem Olajuwon had some brilliant moves, too. Yet Russell was the greatest center the Lakers never got.

“Bill was the guy who really studied guys on defense,” Howard said. “He could score, but he really didn’t have to score. He just really had to lead the team. He did an excellent job of motivating guys, getting guys to play as hard as they could. I feel like I’m that same type of person.”

Some days, you are, Kobe Bryant would say.

Bryant has been quick to draw that very Russell comparison from what Howard has already done defensively in Lakers practices — specifically after one play when Howard roared back up the lane from being driven out of bounds just in time to stuff a soaring Chris Douglas-Roberts’ dunk shy of the rim.

It’s not a matter of whether Howard spends too much time trying to be funny or smiles too often on the court. To Bryant, already a legend in his own right, it’s a matter of making fear-inducing, team-building, winning plays on a consistent basis — not just some days.

“Dwight, for him to be a three-time defensive player of the year, you’ve got to have a little of that dog in you,” Bryant said. “It’s just a matter of him digging deep and just pulling it out. It’s there, and it’s just a matter of him digging deep and pulling it out.”

BIG STEPS FORWARD

There is a general understanding that as he sought to leave Orlando, Howard didn’t really want to follow in the footsteps of all the past Lakers centers. Most of that is tied to his issues with O’Neal, who left Orlando in 1996 and became a winner in Los Angeles with Bryant.

Where Howard has expected support in his career, O’Neal has delivered sneers. And the Dwight-Shaq discord arose again recently when O’Neal, now an analyst for NBA on TNT, said he preferred Bynum and Brooklyn’s Brook Lopez among current centers.

“Dwight is going to be one of the greatest centers of all time,” Bryant countered. “To not say anything but that is laughable.”

There will certainly be no torch passing when O’Neal has his Lakers jersey retired and placed on the Staples Center wall this April. After that latest dig at him from O’Neal, Howard bristled and said to him through reporters: “You did your thing. Your time is up.”

Asked specifically in a quiet preseason moment about not wanting to walk O’Neal’s path from the Magic to the Lakers, Howard suggested he listened too closely to too-shallow advice.

“I got caught up into what people were saying,” he said. “And so what? All these great players have come through here. They’re not trying to follow somebody else. This is where their destiny landed them: in L.A. This is where my destiny landed me.”

Howard is unabashed in declaring how he feels now: “I’m so thankful and so happy. And now I get an opportunity to do something great.”

Howard’s understanding of the hierarchy was heightened when longtime Lakers coach and consultant Bill Bertka, 85, presented him with a video of Wilt-Kareem-Shaq Lakers highlights to study. Howard was so fired up that the stayed up ’til 3 a.m. hunting down more Chamberlain footage on YouTube.

Howard has assumed the front corner space in the Lakers’ locker room at Staples, the one that housed O’Neal when the Lakers moved into the arena in 1999. Howard changed the profile photos for his Twitter and Facebook to an image of him in a Lakers uniform – with Mikan’s No. 99, Chamberlain’s No. 13, Abdul-Jabbar’s No. 33 and O’Neal’s No. 34 draped behind him.

The Lakers’ plan that Howard, 26, will re-sign at season’s end and anchor the franchise in the future is looking good. Just how good the trade and the future look will be up to No. 12 in purple and gold – and how great a Lakers center he turns out to be.

“There’s a lot to be said for Dwight and where he’s at so early in his career,” Bryant said. “He has got a lot of room to grow. His number is going to be up there one day, for sure.”

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